Friday, September 28, 2012

When the boss tells you that you’re being reassigned or reclassified, you still know that no matter the fancy title, it still looks, smells, and feels like a demotion.

Few things in your professional life – aside from being fired or laid off – are more debilitating emotionally than being demoted.

But after years of downsizings and cutbacks, that’s exactly what many employees have faced. Some have tried to put a positive spin on it. After all, they still have a job don’t they? But that doesn’t take the sting out of the fact that they’ve gone down the ladder and now perhaps have even further to go to attain their goals.

While your first reaction to a demotion may be to quit and decide to launch that dryer lint-cleaning business you’ve always dreamed about, that isn’t the best move. For one, quitting means the paychecks stop, and that’s pretty devastating for anyone who has car payments, school loans, a mortgage and kids to support. And two, quitting doesn’t accomplish anything other than putting you in the unemployment line with thousands of others and possibly facing the same consequences in the future.

How do you keep your cool and get past such a difficult period? Some steps you need to take after a demotion include:

Dealing with the emotions. You need a chance to rant and rave or have a good cry after a demotion, but find somewhere private to do it. Don’t try to brush your feelings aside or they may pop up when you least want them to – like having a sobbing fit in your cubicle with co-workers watching.

Understanding the reasons. Once you’ve got your emotions under control, sit down with (read the rest here)

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The only time I remember being really, really nervous when I was speaking in public was when I was 13-years-old and running for student council. I had to give a speech in front of the whole school, and my hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold onto my notes.

After that, I took several speech and drama classes, and I became more comfortable being in front of others.

Over the years, I've also learned that a little nervousness can be a good thing because it keeps you sharp. But I've also learned that preparation is key, as you'll see from this latest column I did for Gannett/USA Today....

Some people make public speaking seem so easy.

They make just the right hand gestures at just the right time, use just the right tone of voice, provide a super PowerPoint presentation and conclude with a riveting message that has the audience leaping to its feet and applauding.

But for many people, speaking in public can be a nerve-wracking, knee-knocking experience that leaves them with clammy hands and a churning stomach. It doesn't matter if the presentation is in front of a small group of people or a major speech in a large auditorium, the heart-pounding anxiety is the same.

If you're nervous speaking publicly, you're not alone.

While some nervousness can keep you focused, being too anxious can undermine your efforts.

If you're so nervous that you begin reading your PowerPoint slides in a monotone instead of trying to connect with your audience, then your professional reputation could take a hit or you might lose an important client.

You can manage your nerves in several ways, says Darlene Price, who has coached thousands of executives and professionals on how to improve their public speaking techniques.

"Fear is what drives nervousness," Price says. "For extroverts, fear of embarrassing themselves in front of others is what drives their nervousness while for introverts it's that fear of not being perfect."

You can master your fear of public speaking in several ways, she says. The most common mistake is not prepping for the audience.

"If people would just take the time -- while they're walking the dog or taking a shower -- to just practice out loud what they want to say, it would help them be better prepared," she says.

Price says that those who get nervous should look for strategies that better help them manage their fears. Among her suggestions:

-- Visualize it. Close your eyes and see the space where you'll be speaking.

See yourself walking out with a big smile on your face. Visualize yourself saying the first few lines of speech and looking out into the audience.

"The brain doesn't know the difference between vividly imagined events or a real events," she says. "Get all your senses involved. Hear yourself speaking. See the people."

-- List 10 "I am" statements. This is an exercise that Price finds effective for clients.

She has each one come up with a list of affirming statements, such as "I am confident," and "I am in touch with my audience." Price videotapes the person saying the statements over and over until they say them with confidence.

She then plays back the exercise so the clients can see themselves saying the phrases with confidence.

-- Smile and breathe. "While this sounds easy, it's not," Price says.

"But if you're smiling, it releases chemicals from the brain that calm the body," she says. "It also shows your audience you're relaxed. It's a much more powerful technique than it sounds." Breathing deeply can relax you as it floods the brain with oxygen.

-- Memorize your opening. It's a good idea to memorize and rehearse the first minutes of a presentation so you're not focused on slides or notes, your head is up and your eyes are connecting with your audience.

-- Toss something to the audience. After your opening statement, find a way to engage the audience, such as asking them to raise their hands in response to a question.

"You want something that puts the attention on them and at the same time, relieves you a little bit while they're thinking about themselves," Price says

Monday, September 24, 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

If someone looked you in the eye and said, “You have 10 minutes to come up with the most creative, most breakthrough idea this industry has ever seen” you might be tempted to laugh in that person’s face.

After all, you’re lucky to remember to feed the dog after the long days you put in at work, let alone the hours you log at home. Come up with a breakthrough, brilliant idea? Who has the brainpower to do that these days?

Yet companies are depending on workers to come up with the innovative ideas needed to keep them competitive and thriving into the next decade. But anyone who has been forced into a brainstorming session and ordered to submit creative ideas knows the agony of forcing a process that seems more like a punishment rather than as a way to help a company’s bottom line.

“The problem is that the idea of innovation has sort of become the flavor of the month,” says Bryan W. Mattimore. “Even ideas about letting employees have 10 percent of their time to innovate or let them use ‘innovation rooms’ have failed.”

Instead, companies are now grasping the idea that they need to do more than “check off a box” that they have innovative practices, and really look at how they can get innovative ideas to the marketplace, much as Apple has done, he says.

Mattimore, president and co-founder of The Growth Engine Co. LLC, has helped companies like Sony, IBM and Pepsi come up with breakthrough ideas, (read more here)

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I remember in junior high all the girls dressed the same. Blue jeans, boots, white belts, flannel shirts and pea coats. I would rather have jumped into a trash compactor than not look like everyone else.

But as I got older, of course, I wanted my own style. I wanted to stand out.

That's what happens to many people in the workplace, it appears. A new study looks at how we all feel threatened when we don't feel we're "special" enough. Read this latest story I did for Gannett/USA Today.....

You've heard the advice: If you're a woman or a minority and want to get ahead in a highly competitive field, look for a mentor to champion you.

But the downside to that strategy happens when others like you want the same mentor. You all may identify with this mentor, but the clustering of employees creates its own problems.

Putting too many women or minorities together in a group can lead to "ghettoes" of low-power minority groups, says Katherine L. Milkman, assistant professor of operations and information management professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. These under-represented groups may think they aren't special enough, that it's better to leave and try to succeed elsewhere.

"Clustering minorities brings social cohesion, but it may make them (minority employees) think their chances for promotion are diminished," she says. "They sort of feel like, 'Well, maybe they don't need all of us.' They start to feel like they're not special and won't stand out. It starts to feel like a competition."

One surprising aspect of her research was that even men feel competition more keenly if they're around other men similar to themselves.

"We weren't expecting to see the same types of phenomenon for men," Milkman says. "But we actually do see these same types of competitive effects in terms of likelihood of leaving for men who are juniors. We do see that the more men there are in your work group, the more likely you are to exit."

Managers may want to re-think putting similar employees in a work group, she says. Instead of helping a team to bond, those similarities may prompt employees to feel threatened by one another because they don't see a chance to stand out and work their way up in a company. That may be true especially if a limited number of minorities are available to mentor workers similar to themselves.

The answer may be to disperse minority groups throughout an organization.

"People can feel like they stand out. Everyone wants to feel valued and unique," she says.

In addition, she thinks companies still should continue to create opportunities to network and make minorities and women feel part of a community, such as having lunches for women.

Milkman began her research while earning her doctorate four years ago at Harvard University. She and her mentor, Professor Kathleen L. McGinn at Harvard Business School, began looking at data and employee interviews from a large national law firm. She'd like to look at industries that aren't as competitive to see if the same findings hold true.

In the large law firm, they found that a greater number of female supervisors improved chances that junior-level female employees would be promoted.

Yet having senior men around doesn't provide any benefit for men. The reason: So many men are around that they don't ever lack resources to help them get ahead.

"There's never a work group that doesn't have several senior men around," she says. "Men are never without a mentor entirely."

Thursday, September 13, 2012

If you’ve just been offered a new job, you probably feel very fortunate to be one of those people who will no longer have to spend endless hours surfing job sites or supplying perky Twitter updates to garner some attention from a recruiter.

But now you’re about to take on one of the most difficult tasks in this job search journey: Negotiating a salary.

What? You’re willing to take whatever they give you? You’renot good at negotiations? You don’t want to risk the new job by asking for too much?

Forget those doubts. If you don’t negotiate, you may be jeopardizing your future with the company and the trajectory of your career in the decades to come.

That’s because your skills at negotiating will not only impress your new employer, but it’s expected. If you don’t haggle a bit, they’re going to wonder what sort of nincompoop they’re hiring.

Also, the salary you negotiate now will be the one chance you have to set yourself up for better salary boosts at this company and your income at future employers. Bungle this now, and you’re likely to pay for it in the rest of your career as no one is going to be willing to give you a huge pay boost to make up for undervaluing yourself now.

So how do you negotiate the right salary for a new job? Follow these tips:

1. Do your homework. Before your first interview, you should have done research on comparable salaries. If you haven’t done so, do it now. Sites like Vault and PayScale offer salary information on thousands of jobs, but you should also use your network to ask about (read more here)

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Yesterday I was affected for several hours by the Go Daddy crash. As I felt my blood pressure spike, I calmed myself by knowing that I had just talked to some pretty smart folks who reassure me that the bad guys who caused it will be found -- and stopped in the future. Here's a recent story I did for Gannett/USAToday.com....

Hackers often are portrayed as basement-dwelling, junk-food eating computer geniuses who enjoy wreaking havoc on unsuspecting people by sneaking into their computers.

Their activities can be criminal and in worst-case scenarios can shut down infrastructures or drain bank accounts.

But some "white hat" hackers are not only chasing these cybercriminals but also thwarting the attacks before they can be launched. With sleuthing abilities that would makeSherlock Holmes proud, the good guys predict what cybercriminals will do next and put measures in place for companies or government agencies to stop them.

CORE Security, a Boston-based operation that employs people around the world, researches what cybercriminals are up to and develops software to plug security holes before the bad guys find them.

"It's sort of like an MRI that helps you see inside a body. We are looking inside systems for potential problems and where an attack could happen," says Mark Hatton, CORE chief executive. "It's a controlled way of looking at what a hacker would do."

Still, the skills needed to track the bad guys across cyberspace require unique talents, and managing these white-hat hackers requires some finesse, he says.

"What I've learned is that you've got to hire people that are really good at what they do — and then you've got to let them do it," Hatton says. "I have to trust that they are choosing the right path."

At CORE, the researchers are extremely savvy computer sleuths who are tenacious in pursuing potential leads on where cybercriminals might strike next. He says employees must be given the independence to decide which trails to follow and be given the flexibility to stay on a case even if they sometimes encounter blind alleys or dead ends.

"You're talking about people who work exhausting hours," he says. "They may come in at 10 a.m. and not leave until 2 a.m.."

Adding to Hatton's management challenges: His research team operates out of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and some employees aren't comfortable speaking English. That has prompted Hatton to change his management style during his quarterly visits there.

The workers didn't ask questions during group meetings, but Hatton learned the reason was because some were very conscious that English wasn't their first language and were embarrassed.

Meeting with them in small groups encouraged them to use co-workers as interpreters, and now Hatton believes communication is flowing better.

Good communication is key not only to making sure information flows smoothly, but it also is critical in retaining workers that competitors such as Google are targeting. Hatton says he makes sure CORE employees understand, starting with the interview process, that they'll be continually learning on the job and developing their career skills.

"One thing I learned early on in my management career is that everyone wants to do something for the first time every day," he says. "We definitely have that here."

Hatton even uses that philosophy to recruit.

"I tell them how it's important that they're always learning," he says. "I tell them, 'You've got to make sure the job is interesting.' "

The average age of a CORE worker is 27, usually male, and someone who may come to work in flip-flops and shorts. When the cyberdetectives need to blow off steam, they can have fun playing on the company ping-pong table.

Still, when it comes to identifying global threats, these hackers are a serious group, Hatton says.

"Our people are highly driven to find the answer. They understand hackers. And even though it sounds like a Hallmark card, they really want to help customers get ahead of these bad guys," he says. "They put a lot of pressure on themselves to try and predict where attacks are happening and how they're happening."

Has Hatton ever considered flipping a bad guy into a white-hat hacker for CORE?

"No," he says. "As soon as someone has emotionally agreed to apply their skills in an unlawful way then that is not someone we would trust being on the good-guy side."

Friday, September 7, 2012

There has been no lack of frustration in the workplace when it comes to onboarding young workers.

Managers find themselves irked that some of these new employees seem to think nothing of showing up late for work, texting friends during meetings or “dropping in” on the CEO to chat about upcoming vacation plans.

Alexia Vernon has heard many of the stories, and as a member of the Millenial generation herself understands how some young professionals can take such wrong turns in the workplace.

But she believes much of the pain of bringing young workers up to speed could be alleviated if managers understood the role they needed to play in successfully training and developing this generation.

She has written a new book, “90 Days, 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance” (ASTD, $29.95), that seeks to educate employers about how to best deal with young employees so that it cuts down on manager frustration and improves worker success.

Among her suggestions for managers:

Be aware. The Society for Human Resource Development finds that 44% of managers of young workers report that some workplace intergenerational conflict exists in their organizations. Vernon says that while many companies are recognizing that changes need to be made as more young workers enter the workplace, more managers still need to craft (read more here)

"As resources become more finite, then there is a pecking order of who gets more. That gets everyone more focused on power," says Steven Blader, associate professor of management and organizations at NYU.

Managers who feel more powerful are more likely to treat workers unfairly and have less concern about fairness when making decisions, the research finds.

Still, researchers found another kind of manager does focus more on fairness: managers more focused on status — how others perceive them.

And a manager seen as being more fair is more likely to have an engaged workforce that delivers better bottom-line results, Blader says.

"The takeaway from this is that companies need to get their managers more focused on what their colleagues and subordinates think about them," he says.

While some companies use a 360-degree feedbackprocess that ranks manager performance on feedback from customers, colleagues and staff, managers need to make sure they're also focused on treating workers fairly even as their company wants them to get bottom-line results, Blader says.

Unfortunately, the sluggish economy may make such a task even more difficult.

Bosses are encouraged more than ever to focus on keeping staff lean and to limit compensation, which can lead to an elevated sense of their own power as they weigh in on pay raises or bonuses.

But when companies are struggling to be competitive, they need to focus most on innovation and collaboration in the workplace. If employees think that management isn't treating them fairly and is focused only on the bottom line, they are less likely to be engaged, offer creative ideas or collaborate with team members — all critical elements of success in a tight economy, he says.

Blader says he became interested in conducting these experiments based on his previous work looking at what engages and retains workers. He contends that companies can't hold onto talent only with incentives or compensation, and a company populated with power-grabbing managers may indeed sink the ship.

"We're not trying to create a popularity contest. Employees understand that managers have to make tough choices, but they're looking for someone who is thoughtful and deliberative and deals with issues head on," he says. "They want someone who is fair and willing to explain their decisions."

One interesting development: the newest generation of bosses may have the greatest chance of changing the workplace.

Through social networking like Facebook and Twitter, young managers are more status conscious and aware of employee opinions. They may solicit feedback and ideas from workers through such channels and are used to working collaboratively to reach decisions.

They also may use such networks to share their decision-making process, which can lead to workers feeling that they are being treated fairly.

While no managers want to believe they have become power-hungry ogres, how can they know if they've crossed the line? If a formal 360-degree feedback process isn't in place, Blader says a manager should try to solicit feedback from employees.

"Pay attention to even subtle signs from workers," he says. "Look at their reactions when you ask them how you're doing. Recognize that they're probably apprehensive of giving you feedback, so just try to be a little more attentive to how people are reacting to you."